Hello All:

1967 Volvo 122S Wagon. As some of you may know, I had to replace the fiber timing gear on Virginia. When diagnosing the problem roadside I had needlessly removed the distributor drive gear so I had two ends of the camshaft in play. Many people reported in with great tips and suggestions and I wanted to report back on the results.

First off, I drove her yesterday morning for the first time since the disastrous aborted trip to Washington, D.C. a week earlier. She sounds great, and I have many of you to thank for that. Believe it or not, I was able to get the distributor drive gear to engage exactly right - both in terms of the static timing and the oil pump - on the first drop. God's gift to Volvo lovers George pointed me to a diagram in the B18A manual that shows the correct orientation of the drive gear's linear slot when the engine is at top dead center for cylinder #1. I was able to make that happen by looking at the helical teeth in the drive gear, marking the slope between top and bottom (1-1/2 teeth) and cocking it clockwise 1-1/2 teeth before dropping it in to engage with the cam gear. With the oil pump drive slot conveniently running directly port-to-starboard the whole thing dropped right in. I am certain I would have broken my hand hitting something if I had not been alerted to all of these issues by you, the brickboard community. Many thanks.

The fiber gear, despite many suggestions, would not come off no matter what I did. After trying to build my own gear puller out of wood and metal brackets (the metal brackets failed, not the wood, oddly) I had to borrow a three-legged gear puller from a local mechanic. Of course, the proper sized leg for his puller had been broken by a previous borrower (nearly preventing me from receiving permission to borrow it but for some sweet talk and a promise to replace the whole kit if I broke anything) so I had to drill larger holes in the fiber gear. Luckily it was not steel.

After I got the gear off everything went swimmingly, including getting the whole deal back together. I am wary of one thing, however. George swore up and down that there should be a steel ring of some sort on the back of the timing gear to prevent it from chafing the thrust plate. None was on the shaft when I removed the old fiber gear, and I do not see one stuck to the back of the old fiber gear. I am totally fine with re-dismantling this beast to get it right but is there any other explanation? The thrust plate was in great shape, by the way. It just needed a little cleaning.

By the way, you may have noticed a brickboard posting about sound as a possible justification for using fiber gears in the first place. Some claim there is no difference in sound between the fiber and steel gear sets but Wendy and I clearly hear a much happier, smoother sound coming from the front than what we had before. I hope it is not being caused by the new gear getting grinded down due to the absence of the steel spacer ring.

Sorry for the long post but I thought a few of you might be interested.

Cheers,

Jeff Pucillo